GOD TV, a Christian network specializing in New Apostolic Reformation preachers and events, experienced a major upheaval when CEO and co-founder Rory Alec stepped down. His wife and co-founder Wendy Alec later shared details of his resignation and the disintegration of their marriage.

In Missouri, Jackson County prosecutors dropped murder charges against Micah Moore, who had confessed to killing his friend Bethany Deaton. Moore, Deaton, and her husband had close ties to the International House of Prayer (IHOP), which performed damage control after the murder. Moore's attorneys submitted a motion claiming that Moore's statements about Bethany Deaton's murder were not corroborated by evidence, and that his "confession" came after a chaotic IHOP prayer session and exorcism.

The World Congress of Families received more international criticism for its retrograde stance on reproductive rights and LGBTQ equality. The WCF coped with logistical headaches and protesters at its conference in Melbourne, Australia this summer. The organization also received scathing criticism for its ties with Russia, where WCF staff attended the "Large Families: The Future of Humanity" conference alongside international Religious Right figures.

The Southern Baptist Convention has kept itself busy, hosting conferences on sexuality in April and October. The content of those conferences, sadly, failed to truly expand the faith conversation surrounding sexuality.

The Vatican came under fire in 2014 for its response to the clergy sexual abuse crisis. In January, Vatican representatives appeared before the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child, where a U.N. panel grilled them on the Vatican's failings. The committee later released a report criticizing the Vatican for failing to adequately respond to the abuse crisis. Of course, none of this has stopped the Vatican from seeing itself as a moral authority on matters of sexuality, as the Humanumconference demonstrated.

Humanum: The Complementarity of Man and Woman conference convened in Vatican City on November 17-19. Sponsored by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the conference began with an address from Pope Francis on the importance of marriage and family.

The Pope's sensitive comments about gays have given observers hope that the Catholic Church is evolving on LGBTQ issues. In 2013, Pope Francis shocked the world when he told the media, "If someone is gay and he searches for the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge?". Earlier this month, Pope Francis spoke about how the church in Buenos Aires helped parents support their gay and lesbian children, the Independent reports. Also, Pope Francis recently demoted Cardinal Raymond Burke, a vocal anti-gay Vatican figure, according to MSNBC.

However, Pope Francis' Humanum address suggests that little has changed in terms of the Vatican's positions on LGBTQ issues, marriage, and family. For all his inclusive-sounding sound bites, Pope Francis endorses a heteronormative vision of marriage with no room for same-sex couples.

The Catholic Herald
published a transcript of Pope Francis' opening address to Humanum.
Pope Francis waxed poetic about "the complementarity of man and woman"
as the basis for moral living.

"It is
fitting that you have gathered here in this international colloquium to
explore the complementarity of man and woman. This complementarity is a
root of marriage and family. For the family grounded in marriage is the
first school where we learn to appreciate our own and others’ gifts,
and where we begin to acquire the arts of cooperative living. For most
of us, the family provides the principal place where we can aspire to
greatness as we strive to realize our full capacity for virtue and
charity. At the same time, as we know, families give rise to tensions:
between egoism and altruism, reason and passion, immediate desires and
long-range goals. But families also provide frameworks for resolving
such tensions."

Pope Francis quickly explained that
"complementarity" did not refer to rigid roles, as American
complementarians have understood the term. This puzzled me, as "complementarity" implies that men and women do fit into essential, corresponding roles across cultures. Where does individuality fit here, amidst these gender roles? Where do LGBTQ people, asexuals, singles, and celibates fit into this paradigm?

"When
we speak of complementarity between man and woman in this context, let
us not confuse that term with the simplistic idea that all the roles and
relations of the two sexes are fixed in a single, static pattern.
Complementarity will take many forms as each man and woman brings his or
her distinctive contributions to their marriage and to the formation of
their children — his or her personal richness, personal charisma."

The
tone of the address quickly took on a right-wing flavor. Pope Francis
lamented that marriage and the family are allegedly in a state of
"crisis", with more and more people choosing not to marry.

"We
know that today marriage and the family are in crisis. We now live in a
culture of the temporary, in which more and more people are simply
giving up on marriage as a public commitment. This revolution in manners
and morals has often flown the flag of freedom, but in fact it has
brought spiritual and material devastation to countless human beings,
especially the poorest and most vulnerable."

More
and more, the address resembled the exhortations of American right-wing
figures. The Pope associated the alleged decline of marriage with poverty, and that children have a right to both a father
and a mother. (Doesanyof thissound familiar?)

"Evidence
is mounting that the decline of the marriage culture is associated with
increased poverty and a host of other social ills, disproportionately
affecting women, children and the elderly. It is always they who suffer
the most in this crisis ... The family is the foundation of co-existence
and a remedy against social fragmentation. Children have a right to
grow up in a family with a father and a mother capable of creating a
suitable environment for the child’s development and emotional
maturity."

The haunting similarities continued.
Near the end of his address, Pope Francis claimed that heterosexual
marriage was an "anthropological fact", and that believers must not be
"swayed by political notion" regarding the nature of marriage. The fact that marriage (includingsame-sex marriage) has taken many forms across time and cultures escapes him. Furthermore, same-sex marriage is not about trivial "political notions", but equal rights.

"Do
not fall into the trap of being swayed by political notion. Family is
an anthropological fact – a socially and culturally related fact. We
cannot qualify it based on ideological notions or concepts important
only at one time in history. We can’t think of conservative or
progressive notions. Family is a family. It can’t be qualified by
ideological notions. Family is per se. It is a strength per se."

Pope Francis' address falls flat for several reason. First, Pope Francis' glorification of heterosexual marriage ignores the ugly realities of some marriages.While some unions are happy and healthy, others are plagued by domestic abuse, infidelity, and an absence of trust. Marriage can be good for people whose relationships are healthy and whose temperaments are suited for married life, but marriage is not a universal good per se.

Second, Pope Francis speaks highly of heterosexual marriage and families, lauding their contributions to society. Does he have the same appreciation for LGBTQ and non-married persons? LGBTQ people, singles, and divorced people make important contributions to society, and I worry that such rhetoric devalues their contributions in its lionization of married heterosexuals. Similarly, as he glorifies of heterosexual families, does Pope Francis have the same appreciation for single parents, childless couples, and childfree people? Isn't it ironic that a celibate cleric is extolling the virtues of marriage and family?

Pope Francis' address, in essence, was about affirming heterosexual marriage as normative for all people, complete with gender roles ("complementarity") and childbearing. There is little room for individuality in this normative vision. For all of Pope Francis' LGBTQ-friendly sound bites, his Humanum address shows that his worldview is decidedly conservative and heteronormative. As Jeremy Hooper writes at Good As You, "At the end of the day, he is still at "culture war" against my marriage. My home. My family."

Humanum: The Complementarity of Man and Woman conference convened in Vatican City on November 17-19. Sponsored by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the gathering brought together religious leaders from around the world to discuss marriage and family life, specifically "the beauty of the relationship between the man and the woman". Among the speakers at Humanum were Southern Baptist Convention ERLC president Russell Moore, Saddleback Church pastor Rick Warren, and Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia.

The conference emphasized the centrality of heterosexual marriage, leaving little room for non-nuclear, non-heterosexual couples and families. The Humanum affirmation exalted heterosexual marriage as the foundation of society, stressing that heterosexual marriage "is not ours to alter".

"For marriage is no mere symbol of achievement, but the very foundation—a base from which to build a family and from there a community. For on earth marriage binds us across the ages in the flesh, across families in the flesh, and across the fearful and wonderful divide of man and woman, in the flesh. This is not ours to alter. It is ours, however, to encourage and celebrate."

* * * * * * * * * * *

Humanum and its heteronormative messages are only the most recent reminder of how the Catholic Church really sees LGBTQ people. The conference came on the tail of a controversy surrounding a Vatican statement on gays. Back in October, the Extraordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops convened at the Vatican to discuss family issues in the Catholic Church. The Synod released a document stating that gays have "gifts and talents to offer the Christian community", reports Religion News Service. While the document did not condone same-sex marriage, it observed that gays have a place in the faith community. "Are we capable of providing for these people, guaranteeing ... them ... a place of fellowship in our communities?", the document asks.

Human Rights Campaign president Chad Griffin called the document "a light in the darkness". TWO Care's Wayne Besen was less enthusiastic, but acknowledged that the document was "an improvement over the status quo". Francis DeBernardo, executive director of New Ways Ministry, was hopeful that the document would pave the way for future changes in the Catholic Church. "This call to dialogue has been absent in church discussions of sexuality for way too long," De Bernardo said in a statement published by Windy City Times. "It presents the hope that future changes that are even more welcoming and accepting of lesbian and gay people and their families can develop down the road."

Anti-gay outrage quickly followed. Shortly thereafter, the General Secretariat of the Synod released a declaration calling the statement a mere "working document" in response to observers assigning "a value has been attributed to the document that does not correspond to its nature". On October 14th, the Synod released a statement stressing that, "In relation to homosexuals, moreover, the need for welcome was highlighted, but with the just produced, so that the impression of a positive evaluation of such a tendency on the part of the Church is not created." So much for extending a tiny tidbit of kindness to gays! Humanum, with its glorification of heterosexual marriage, reminds us that the Catholic Church has little love for same-sex couples.

* * * * * * * * * * *

The Humanum conference tells us several things about the current state of the Catholic Church. First, Humanum elevates heterosexual couples with children to an exalted status. Such families are glorified as the foundation of society and the fertile soil from which the next generation grows. What about the contributions of other people who participate in society? Non-nuclear families, singles, divorced people, LGBTQ persons, and childless and childfree people make contributions to society as well, but their gifts feel downplayed amidst the Humanum rhetoric. Don't get me started on the irony of celibate clergy and monastics defining marriage and family for others!

Second, the presence of American evangelical leaders highlights the continuing relationship between the Catholic Church and conservative Protestants. On issues of reproductive rights, sexuality, and family, right-wing Protestants have long collaborated with conservative Catholics.

Third, for all of Pope Francis' progressive-sounding statements and good PR, his Humanum address reveals his retrograde views on gender, marriage, and family. As I'll discuss in an upcoming post, Pope Francis' rhetoric sounds suspiciously similar to that of anti-LGBTQ activists: men and women as "complementary", the family in "crisis", heterosexual families as an anthropological "fact" and the foundation of society, children's right to a father and mother, etc. The Vatican's attitudes toward sexuality, marriage, and family haven't changed much, if Pope Francis' address is any indication.

For Humanum's participants, are marriage and family institutions, or idols? Can they offer strategies for supporting all families, or are they content to lionize families that fit a certain mold? Is Humanum about fostering healthy marriages and families, or about glorifying a paradigm?

In upcoming posts, I'll discuss the personalities and speeches at Humanum more in depth. To read additional commentary, visit the following links.

Friday, December 26, 2014

To read about Albert Mohler's talk at "The Gospel, Homosexuality, and the Future of Marriage" conference, click here. To read about Denny Burk's talk, click here.

One of the most striking things about"The Gospel, Homosexuality, and the Future of Marriage" conference this fall was how speakers talked about LGBTQ people instead of with them. Most of the speakers at the conference were heterosexual religious leaders, and several frowned on same-sex marriage, transgender status, and so for.

This is a longstanding trend among the Religious Right, who declare LGBTQ status sinful while rarely inviting LGBTQ people to the conversation -- not so-called "ex-gay" speakers who fight their sexual orientation and frame it as a "struggle", but LGBTQ people who accept their sexual orientation without shame.

At the Southern Baptist Convention's ERLC conference, Christians and the LGBTQ community were understood as two separate categories. The idea that LGBTQ Christians exist and might want to take part in the conversation was not considered, apparently. This occurred to me as I listened to Rosaria Butterfield's conversation with Russell Moore. Butterfield, the author of The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert, was a former professor at Syracuse University who had been in relationships with women, but is the wife of a pastor and a homeschooling mother.

At the 1:20 mark, Moore asked Butterfield what she thought the Christian community misunderstood about the LGBTQ community. This puzzled me, since it assumed that LGBTQ status and Christian faith were exclusive categories. What about LGBTQ Christians? They have a foot in both communities, so wouldn't they be the best people to ask? I thought.

MOORE: What do evangelical Christians just not get about the LGBT community?

BUTTERFIELD: One of the first things that I firmly believe you don't get is that in this very room and in all of your encounters, you will meet and know and love people whose original sin has left the thumbprint of unwanted homosexual desire. People are not different. Original sin is the great leveling playing field. It has democratized everything, and without meaning to ... you are presuming that without even knowing the people with whom you're speaking that they need to be fixed and fixed up in a specific way.

At the 3:33 mark, Moore asked Butterfield what she thought the LGBTQ community should know about Christians.

MOORE: What do you think the LGBT community does not understand about evangelical Christians?BUTTERFIELD: Well, I think it would be impossible for anyone apart from the bounded system of the Christian church to know anything about the means of grace. I think the means of grace are things that we have at our fingertips. It is part of the great spiritual inheritance of being a child of the living God.

There is a reason why openly LGBTQ Christians are not invited to such conversations, why the Religious Right talks about LGBTQ peopleas that group over there instead of with them. It's easy to objectify a group over there. It's much more difficult to objectify people when you engage with them as people. When LGBTQ people discuss the truths of their lives -- their thoughts, feelings, hopes, and experiences -- it challenges onlookers to accept them as human beings who deserve respect.Condemning a group as sinful, unbiblical, and unhealthy becomes much more difficult when one hears their stories, stories that demand validation.
Where there is ignorance, intolerance thrives. Enlightened people must replace bigotry with knowledge and empathy.

Wednesday, December 24, 2014

I hoped that my holiday vacation would give me time to catch up on blogging. Unfortunately, I got the flu for Christmas! I'll resume blogging soon once I'm feeling better, but in the meantime, enjoy some gothic Christmas cheer.

Wednesday, December 17, 2014

As discussed in a prior post, the Response Louisiana will take place in Baton Rouge in January 24th. The gathering will take place at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center on the Louisiana State University campus, a decision that has drawn fire from opponents of the rally.

A project called Organizing Against Hate Groups is speaking out against the figures hosting and attending the Response Louisiana, reports the New Orleans Times-Picayune. According to their Facebook page, Organizing Against Hate Groups will hold a demonstration outside of the Peter Maravich Assembly Center on January 24th, followed by workshops on social justice and grassroots organizing.

The project counts several regional LGBTQ and women's rights groups among its sponsors, including Feminists in Action, Qroma, the Louisiana LGBTQ Business List, and NOW Shreveport. A statement by Organizing Against Hate Groups criticized Jindal for breaking bread with homophobes and anti-choice activists.

"On January 24th. Governor Jindal plans to take his first steps in running for the presidency by hosting a prayer rally on the LSU main campus in Baton Rouge.

Unfortunately, he has again chosen to ally himself with the radical Christian right, and by this I mean the right-wing of Christians. The people who want to re-criminalize homosexuality and applaud the actions of the Ugandan government which is trying to make homosexuality punishable by death. These are the same people who blame natural disasters on unwed mothers, abortion, and marriage equality.

These are the same people who are fanatical about abortion laws but think that helping poor people when they need help is destroying our country. These are the same people claiming persecution in the US yet support countries like Uganda attempting to make homosexuality punishable by death.

We are protesting this event not because it is a Christian event, we are protesting because this is our campus, and we do not accept their message of hate and exclusion.

We are also hosting break out sessions to help train people on how to be better community organizers in their areas of interest ranging from effective use of social media to engaging in civil disobedience, and more.

These individuals claim to be part of a moral majority, but we know that there is no morality in their words. There is no morality in hate.

LSU has a saying “Love Purple, Live Gold.”

It is our responsibility to Live Gold by taking a stand and saying no more, so come join us on January 24th at 9am."

Louisiana State University Students are also petitioning LSU's administrators, urging them not to host the Response Louisiana on campus. A Change.org petition entitled "Ban the American Family Association from rallying on campus at LSU" condemns the American Family Association, one of the sponsors of the rally, as an anti-gay hate group. Inflammatory statements by AFA representatives run contrary to LSU's code of conduct, the petition argues.

"In LSU's own code of conduct it outlines a "commitment to community" that expects that students will:

"hold myself and others to the highest standards of...personal, and social integrity"

"practice justice, equality, and compassion in human relations"

"respect the dignity of all persons and accept individual differences"

If students are held to these standards of basic decency, why do the same rules not apply to visitors to LSU's campus? As a member of the LSU student community, it saddens and offends me that our administration would welcome to campus a recognized hate group whose vile rhetoric targets gay and transgendered people, Muslims, immigrants, and other marginalized groups. Such action undermines the safe, tolerant, respectful atmosphere that LSU seeks to provide for its diverse community. Please help me in petitioning the administration to reconsider letting an unabashedly bigoted group rally on our campus. LSU is better than that."

Another Change.org petition reminds LSU administrators of its commitment to equality, alarmed that "the university has agreed to allow Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal to host an on-campus, politically-motivated prayer rally in January which distributes materials blaming recent tornadoes and hurricanes on LGBT people." The petition also urges LSU not to host the Response Louisiana, an event that would fly in the face of LSU's non-discrimination policies.

Not everyone in Louisiana is excited about the Response Louisiana's upcoming "revolution of righteousness". As rally organizers champion a right-wing vision for America, opponents continue to remind them that their vision is flawed.

Saturday, December 13, 2014

In August 2011, the Response Rally took place in Reliance Stadium in Houston, Texas, which I had the dubiouspleasure oflive-blogging. The gathering, promoted by Texas Gov. Rick Perry, was intended as a day of Christian prayer in the midst of economic decline and "moral relativism". Sponsored by the American Family Association and the International House of Prayer, the Response Rally featured a plethora of anti-gay and anti-abortion speakers from the Religious Right, including James and Shirley Dobson, John Hagee, Mike Bickle, Alveda King, Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback, and Rick Perry himself. Now, Louisiana plans to host its own Response Rally.

The Response Louisiana is scheduled to take place on January 24th, 2015 at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. According to the Response website, the gathering will be a time for "humility and repentance" as worshipers ask God to intervene in America's struggles.

"We believe that America is in a state of crisis. Not just politically, financially, or morally, but because we are a nation that has not honored God in our successes or humbly called on Him in our struggles. The Response: Louisiana is committed to prayer above politics, to seeing the church moved to stand for righteousness, and to pray for God’s mercy for America.

According to the Bible, the answer to a nation in such crisis is to gather in humility and repentance and ask God to intervene. The Response will be another historic gathering of people from across the nation to pray and fast for America."

The front page of the Response website describes just what is wrong with America, according to its organizers.

"America is in the midst of a historic crisis. We are besieged by financial debt, terrorism, and a multitude of natural disasters. Our nation is faced with fatherless homes, an epidemic of drugs and crime in our inner cities, a saturation of pornography in our homes, abortion, and racism."

Right Wing Watch recently brought attention to a Response Louisiana prayer guide, which gives readers a taste of the rally's right-wing tone. The guide insists that sin has intensified to a level never before seen in America, thanks to abortion, LGBTQ rights, adult entertainment, and "apostasy". I would argue that America was the setting for far more heinous sins in the past, including slavery, conquest, and ethnocide. Do the prayer guide authors really think that LGBTQ equality and reproductive rights are so monstrous as to dwarf these national sins?

"We have watched sin escalate to a proportion the nation has never seen before. We live in the first generation in which the wholesale murder of infants through abortion is not only accepted but protected by law. Homosexuality has been embraced as an alternative lifestyle. Same-sex marriage is legal in six states and Washington, D.C. Pornography is available on-demand through the internet. Biblical signs of apostasy are before our very eyes. While the United States still claims to be a nation “under God” it is obvious that we have greatly strayed from our foundations in Christianity."

A host of New Apostolic Reformation figures are featured in promotional videos for the Response Louisiana, including Jim and Rosemary Garlow, Cindy Jacobs of Generals International, and Jennifer LeClaire of Charisma Magazine (yes, thatJenniferLeClaire) . Louisiana's Gov. Bobby Jindal has also launched a promotional video for the rally, in which he promised a spiritual revival that could put America back on track. "What we really need in these United States is a spiritual revival," he said. "It is time to turn back to God."

As Right Wing Watch has observed, Bobby Jindal has been wooing theReligious Right as of late, possibly in preparation for the 2016 election. Will the Response Louisiana provide him with enough allies on the Religious Right to be a political contender? Or will it fail to provide him with sufficient political momentum, as was the case with Rick Perry after the first Response Rally? Will ties to anti-LGBTQ, anti-abortion figures earn him friends among conservatives, or only serve to alienate liberal and moderate voters?

Today, anti-gay figures from the U.S. joined their Jamaican counterparts for a conference in Kingston, Jamaica. The Jamaica Coalition for a Healthy Society, the Jamaica Lawyers' Christian Fellowship, and Jamaica CAUSE hosted International Human Rights Conference 2014, with "The Family as a Strategy for Development" as this year's theme. The Jamaican Coalition for a Healthy Society has advocated in favor of the country's anti-sodomy law and opposes LGBTQ rights, as demonstrated by its media resources.

For those who could afford the $1500 admission fee, or for students who received free admission, the conference offered talks by Liberty Counsel founder Mat Staver and Liberty University professor Judith Reisman, among other speakers. A past conference also featured U.K. and U.S. Religious Right speakers such as AFTAH's Peter LaBarbera and Christian Concern's Andrea Minichiello Williams.

Answers in Genesis, the organization behind the infamous Creation Museum in Petersburg, Kentucky, plans to open a Noah's Ark theme park. Ark Encounter, scheduled to open in Williamstown, Kentucky in summer 2016, will include a full-scale replica of Noah's ark as described in Genesis 6. However, when an Ark Encounter job posting required applicants to provide a "salvation testimony" and affirm a statement of faith, Americans United for Separation of Church and State urged Kentucky's Tourism Development Finance Authority to deny state tax subsidies to the project.

The Tourism Authority agreed. Earlier this week, the Louisville Courier-Journal reported that the theme part planned will not receive roughly $18 million in state tax incentives. Ark Encounter was denied the tax incentives over concerns that awarding such incentives would violate church-state separation, the article explains. Americans United applauded the decision.

According to the Washington Post, Kentucky Tourism, Arts and Heritage Cabinet sent a letter to Answers in Genesis arguing that the Noah's Ark park resembled a ministry rather than a tourist attraction, and that its hiring practices failed to meet state requirements for tax incentives.

Answers in Genesis may challenge the decision in court, according to the Associated Press. In a video statement, Answers in Genesis CEO Ken Ham offered his side of the issue, urging Christian groups to take note of Kentucky's decision. (Hat tip to Friendly Atheist.)

"This employment issue is a matter of great importance not only to AIG, but to every Christian organization, to every church that doesn't want to give in to demands from the government to hire non-Christians. In fact, every religious organization should be worried at what the state of Kentucky is trying to do."

What is so confusing about this? Answers in Genesis is a religious ministry. Ark Encounter promotes religion -- in this case, a literal interpretation of the Great Flood story -- and hires only employees who embrace a particular interpretation of Christianity. If Kentucky were to offer tax incentives to Ark Encounter, it would raise problems for church-state separation. Whether Answers in Genesis takes this decision lying down remains to be seen.

Some figures dismissed the report even before its release. According to a December 8th article in the New York Times, former vice president Dick Cheney admitted that he had not read the Senate committee report, but that his support of the CIA's Detention and Interrogation Program remained solid. "What I keep hearing out there is they portray this as a rogue operation and the agency was way out of bounds and then they lied about it," he told the New York Times. "I think that’s all a bunch of hooey. The program was authorized. The agency did not want to proceed without authorization, and it was also reviewed legally by the Justice Department before they undertook the program." Cheney called the report's claim that the CIA misled the White House "a crock", insisting that the CIA "ought to be decorated, not criticized."

Even after the report's release, some right-wing figures defended CIA brutality. In an interview with CNN today, former Congressman Joe Walsh (R-Illinois) defended CIA torture as a necessary tool in the fight against extremism. He pointed out that extremist groups do not honor the Geneva Convention, which apparently gives the U.S. license to ignore the Geneva Convention in his eyes. (Hat tip to Raw Story.)

"Everybody is all abuzz that we had to do some pretty tough things to fight an evil enemy. I'm glad they put the report out. I'm glad, though, because I I don't think we should be ashamed of what we put out. Again, we're fighting an evil enemy. There are times when we need to get our hands dirty when we fight than enemy ... I don't have a problem with what's released. I think we can never ever forget who we're dealing with. I mean, we're dealing with ISIS, Al-Qaeda. They don't abide by the Geneva Convention. They can't even spell the Geneva Convention. This is a different kind of war."

When Carol Costello confronted him about the disturbing treatment of detainees detailed in the report, he defended such inhumane treatment as a valid way to defeat "animals".

COSTELLO: Is an American hero someone who is instructed by our government to conduct rectal force-feedings on a prisoner, or chain someone naked to a concrete floor until he dies, or nearly drown them two to three times a day? Is that the definition of an American hero?

WALSH: It may, Carol, be part of the job description. Our men and women, and again, the CIA, they've been on the ground--

COSTELLO: Really!?

WALSH: Absolutely. Look, we forget as Americans who we're dealing with. Got to be frank. We're dealing with animals. We're dealing with groups of people who behead, blow up, exterminate people--

COSTELLO: So we too should be animals?

WALSH: The way you defeat an animal, Carol, often times, is to act like one.

The American Family Association's Sandy Rios commented on the CIA's "so-called torture" during the December 9th edition of Sandy Rios in the Morning. Rios was disgusted at the release of the report, not at the mistreatment of detainees described therein. (Hat tip to Right Wing Watch.)

"People are speculating, why in the world now? Why now release this? You're going to hear further in this report that CIA agents who were working during that time are going to be in great danger, plus countries abroad that have cooperated with us where we sent some of the prisoners and interrogated them, we're revealing all of it, just laying it all bare today, today, just has to be done today! In the midst of the fact that we still have hostages held by ISIS, we have men and women fighting overseas in Afghanistan and Iraq, and we must, because we have this high moral ground, 'societal and constitutional values' says Diane Feinstein ... When I see the Islamists beheading, cruelly torturing and beheading Americans, I’m not too concerned about waterboarding them. Really, I'm not ... That’s not like we beheaded them to see what it felt like."

During the December 9th edition of Focal Point, American Family Association's Bryan Fischer insisted that "there was nothing illegal about the interrogation techniques that were used by CIA operatives." He insisted that mistreatment of detainees "worked", arguing that "waterboarding is not torture". Are yousureabout that, Bryan?

"Do not forget that these detainees have no constitutional rights, because they're not American citizens; they have absolutely no constitutional rights that they can claim, and they have no Geneva Convention rights," Fischer stated. The fact that human beings have fundamental human rights, regardless of nationality or protection under documents, escapes him. Fischer's defense of detainee mistreatment smacks of legalism, in which disturbing behavior is acceptable as long as it conforms to regulations. (Hat tip to Right Wing Watch.)

I keep hearing common refrains in these commentaries. Oh, the bad guys did it too.Oh, the rules said it was okay. Don't you understand that these are not solid arguments for torture? Even as children we learn than two wrongs don't make a right, that an opponent's unethical actions do not justify our unethical actions. To boot, appeals to authority do not erase the moral stain of torture. Torture is immoral, whether or not it is permitted by the regulations of a particular setting.

I'm sick of right-wing voices who see moral decay everywhere except where it festers. If your value system doesn't compel you to reject torture, your value system is broken.

This week, the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence released its Committee Study of the Central Intelligence Agency's Detention and Interrogation Program, a harrowing report on the CIA's use of "enhanced interrogation techniques" against detainees. According to the report, CIA interrogations of detainees were far more
vicious than the CIA described to lawmakers, with physical violence,
waterboarding, sleep deprivation, stress positions, rectal rehydration, and threats of violence against loved ones among the
"enhanced interrogation techniques" used on detainees.

The report states the CIA's use of "enhanced interrogation techniques" was not an effective strategy for collecting intelligence. To boot, the CIA's arguments for the use of these techniques rested on incorrect claims regarding their effectiveness. Outside attempts to exert oversight over the CIA's Detention and Interrogation Program were stonewalled, the report states, with the CIA impeding White House, Congress, and Office of Inspector General oversight. Not surprisingly, CIA personnel were rarely held accountable for inappropriate activities and violations of CIA policies, the document argues.

Globalhumanrightsorganizations have expressed outrage at the CIA actions described in the report, urging further investigation of torture. According to the Atlantic,
Senator John McCain asserted that the torture described therein
"compromises that which most distinguishes us from our enemies, our
belief that all people, even captured enemies, possess basic human
rights."

Americans from across the political spectrum, including conservatives, have expressed disgust at CIA mistreatment of detainees. For example, Rod Dreher argued that the report "shows our government’s capacity for committing barbaric evil" and mused on what the report says about the U.S.

"This is a matter of deep conscience. What kind of country are we? Is this what America is? Is this what we defend? The worst kind of barbarism? In particular I want to say to my fellow Christian conservatives: think hard about this report, and the idolatrous attitude that so many of us have toward America. We are America’s good servants, but God’s first. When our country has done evil, we must not hesitate to condemn it, and work to reform it. What we must not do is fall victim to an instrumentalist mentality that calls evil acts good because they achieved, or are believed to have achieved, desired results."

Unfortunately, several right-wing voices refuse to take the report seriously or wrestle with the moral implications of torture. In the days before the report's release, Fox News featured several voices defending "enhanced interrogation techniques" as a means by which the CIA allegedly saved American lives. During the December 8th edition of The O'Reilly Factor, Karl Rove claimed that such harsh techniques kept America safe, blasting those behind the report as "desperate" and eager to "smear" the CIA. (Hat tip to Media Matters.)

"We aren't going to convince the hard left, but we do need to remind the American people, the vast majority of whom are not part of the hard left, that these techniques worked in a dark moment for our country to keep our country safe ... People who want to diminish the CIA, regardless of the impact on our allies, regardless of the security of the United States. They've spent $40 million and six years coming to this moment, and they're desperate before they lose control of the Senate Intelligence Committee, to smear the CIA, and shame on them for doing so."

During the December 8th edition of The Five, Eric Bolling applauded the CIA's techniques, insisting that it produced quality intelligence. (Hat tip to Media Matters.)

"I celebrate what the CIA did in the aftermath of 9/11. Three-thousand people lost their lives downtown. We were angry. America was on our heels. We didn't know what to do, and the CIA came forward, and they aggressively interrogated, legally, aggressively interrogated some bad guys, and they got some intel that led to the capture of Osama Bin Laden. Why are we apologizing for it? I'm not really sure."

During the December 8th edition of The Sean Hannity Show, Hannity showed little concern over the use of waterboarding and other forms of torture, convinced that it saved Americans. Noticing a pattern? (Hat tip to Media Matters.)

"John Kerry asked [Sen. Diane Feinstein] to delay the release of the committee's report on "CIA torture and rendition" during the Bush administration, so we get this on the same day that Obama is releasing how many people from Gitmo? Five people? Six people? So Bush tortured terrorists and Obama releases them ... I don't give a flying rip because I am certain that American lives were saved ... I don't care that we waterboarded Kalid Sheik Mohammed."

We know now that, according to the report, "enhanced interrogation techniques" were not an effective strategy for gathering intelligence. Even before the report's release, their effectiveness in amassing intelligence was debatable, with former intelligenceagents admitting doubt about the efficacy of waterboarding, sleep deprivation, stress positions, etc.

Even after the release of the report, some voices from the right remained unmoved. On the December 9th edition of Fox News' Outnumbered, some commentators were dismissive of the report. Jesse Watters told viewers, "I don't want to know about it; I think people do nasty things in the dark, especially after a terrorist attack." Andrea Tantaros saw no need for transparency at the CIA, defending the CIA's actions as a necessity after 9/11. Americans need not be upset over the torture report, she explained, because such practices have supposedly been stopped. The report's release, in her eyes, was a Democratic distraction. (Hat tip to Media Matters.)

"Sunlight at the CIA? I'm sorry. That's one place I don't need sunlight. I don't think they need to give me a lot of transparency at the CIA. Look, thousands of Americans were killed after 9/11. The Bush administration did what the American public wanted, and that was do whatever it takes to keep us safe. These terror tactics have been stopped because as a country, we decided we are better than this, so we stopped them, which is my point. Then then why are we putting out this memo? ... It's about politics. It's about Democrats being so fundamentally lost as a party, Harris, they have to return to an old playbook, the plays that they ran right when Obama got into office trying to prosecute CIA officials for these terror tactics, and that same playbook that they feel got them the House of Representatives back."

I was appalled by these flippant attitudes toward torture, toward waterboarding, physical abuse, and rectal rehydration, which a senior medical advisor to Physicians for Human Rights called "a form of sexual assault masquerading as medical treatment." In their moral apathy, they disregarded brutal treatment of detainees as somehow justified by September 11th, as if two wrongs could make a right.

We're capable of better moral reasoning than this.

Torture is not only ineffective, but immoral, whether the targets of torture are criminals or one of the 26 detainees who did not meet the standard for detention. A state that tortures is a state that has abandoned its founding principles and any moral high ground. When human dignity is diminished in this way, it allows for many other human rights to be violated, with hideous consequences.

It will take many years and intensive reform before the U.S. can remedy this sin. Until then, we must call for intelligence strategies that actually keep Americans safe, instead of barbarism that fails to keep anyone safe. We must demand transparency from our government. We must demand that those who were responsible for torture be held accountable.

As for the right-wing voices who blast same-sex marriage and contraception coverage as immoral, but sneer at a torture report, your moral compass is broken.